Naguib Mahfouz

From Wikiquote
Jump to: navigation, search
Naguib Mahfouz, 1990s

Naguib Mahfouz (Arabic: نجيب محفوظ‎ Nagīb Maḥfūẓ, IPA: [næˈɡiːb mɑħˈfuːzˤ]; December 11, 1911August 30, 2006) was an Egyptian writer, who won the 1988 Nobel Prize for Literature.

Quotes [edit]

  • Voices were blended and intermingled in a tumultuous swirl around which eddied laughter, shouts, the squeaking of doors and windows, piano and accordion music, rollicking handclaps, a policeman's bark, braying, grunts, coughs of hashish addicts and screams of drunkards, anonymous calls for help, raps of a stick, and singing by individuals and groups.
  • You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.
    • Cited in: Michael J. Gelb (1996) Thinking for a change: discovering the power to create, communicate and lead. p. 96
  • God did not intend religion to be an exercise club.
    • Attributed to Naguib Mahfouz in: Thorntize (2009) The Handbook of Wisdom and Delight. p. 121
  • According to Islamic principles, when a man is accused of heresy, he is given the choice between repentance and punishment.
    • Naguib Mahfouz in: Gary Dexter (2010) Poisoned Pens: Literary Invective Form Amis to Zola. p. 226

About Naguib Mahfouz [edit]

  • [Mahfouz's fiction allowed readers the] rare privilege of entering a national psychology, in a way that thousands of journalistic articles or television documentaries could not achieve.
  • Naguib Mahfouz, an Egyptian novelist who was the first Arabic writer to receive the Nobel Prize for literature and who was often considered the greatest writer in the Arab world... lived his entire life in Cairo, which provided the inspiration and backdrop for almost all of his writing... He set most of his works in the ancient Islamic quarter of Cairo, with its mosques and serpentine alleys teeming with shopkeepers, metalsmiths, government workers, peasants, prostitutes and thieves. His vibrant novels portraying life at every level of society were often likened to those of such other writers of urban social realism as Charles Dickens, Honore de Balzac and Emile Zola.

External links [edit]

Wikipedia
Wikipedia has an article about: